This is old news, but I haven’t blogged about it yet. Former state senator Joe Dunn (d-Orange County), who used to be a plaintiff’s lawyer and has always been close to the Consumer Attorneys of California, is the new chief lobbyist for the California Medical Association.
As long as I’ve worked with them, CMA’s chief focus has been protecting the odious medical malpractice caps called “MICRA” (the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act)–these extremely low caps on damage awards effectively prevent patients who are injured by negligent health care providers (including hospitals) from getting any lawyer to represent them–it’s just not worth taking the case.
Yet the California Medical Association, under the leadership of the late great Steve Thompson, had made some strides in working towards meaningful health care coverage, and occasionally escaped from the dominance of Kaiser Permanente, the giant HMO that pays some 50% of its membership fees on behalf of Kaiser doctors–ooh, I should tell you my favorite Steve Thompson story.
Will Joe Dunn, champion of individual rights now be in the position of fighting to keep MICRA caps low? It’s hard to imagine CMA would hire him without a solemn committment to defend MICRA. And it’s hard to picture the Joe Dunn I know standing up for negligent doctors. Stay tuned…